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Andrew Coatessaid,

Thanks Rosie, I’m still a bit shaken by this (it happened about one and a half hours ago). It began very badly when the seated officer said, after verifying my name, you have a Blog, Tendance Coatesy, it’s called a ‘left socialist blog’.

It would be “fascistic” to say that Ellis et al shouldn’t be allowed to write anywhere. They can set up blogs as much as they like, and comment to whoever will put up with them as far as I’m concerned. A crazy abusive crowd like that puts off other people from commenting. However Dave O’s blog, his choice. I get the sense that he writes his v. good posts and then goes off and does something else.

b) The bartender analogy is best: ‘anyone can drink in my bar but there are some lines of behaviour and if you cross one you will be barred and will have to go and find another bar somewhere else’ – I just wish more blogs followed it and banned persistent offenders.

(IIRC I got banned from Crooked Timber and from Lenin’s Tomb – both of which did me a great favour and saved me untold hours of time).

c) This is a problem with other blogs as well – I gave up commenting on and even reading the Compass (a large and well funded centre left-ish Labour grouping) site years ago because the comments were dominated by a small group of obsessive trolls very much like Osler’s and anyone actually commenting on an article would soon realise this and leave in disgust.

It has to be said that what with Deviation FTM, C.U.B.S of the FI and various other loons, obsessives and anti-Semites who may or may not be Herr David Ellis, not to mention Fascist Ken Bell (the man who was too reactionary for Ukip) and Jimmy Glesga, I don’t blame Dave for closing down his comments.

daggisaid,

If he’d just turned off the comments it would be understandable, but his policy is/was, after all, “let it rock”. Which meant basically, in practice “let random shit combined with far-right politics along with some IMG remininices poison his website” leaving no chance for any serious or relevant comments. A shame really.

I just hope that Jim can find a way of blocking any migration of any more of Dave’s trolls here.

And what’s left of the left really do need to re-evaluate what blogs and twitter and social media in general really are – at its best a huge black hole into which I’ve personally sunk far far too many hours and at its worst a self-generated indictment sheet that can invite police visits, persecution by vexatious litigants, personal targeting by actual fascists, lost job opportunities etc, etc.

Absolutely appalled that the polis are hassling you but we have to accept that blogs and twitter and comments we make anywhere online are not private communications (or even the semi-private communications that writing a piece in a small circulation left paper in the 1970s effectively was) and that our enemies are now taking a real interest in them.

In the local elections we now know that a whole room full of Tory central office staff were paid to spend weeks googling 1,700 UKIP council candidates for dirt – and found lots of batshit crazy stuff to feed to the press.

Next election (which will probably be on the same day as a district election when thousands of plebs like me will also be standing for election) this machine will be turned on Labour candidates and not just on what they themselves say online but the people who comment in the same places say.

I know an excellent Labour councillor with higher ambitions who is currently being threatened with a libel suit based on one throwaway line on twitter about an opponent and which may destroy her political career.

Dave Osler was dragged through the courts and while he won put to great stress and expense because of a single joke by a commenter impugning the sanity of a Tory council candidate.

Dr Eoin Harris who has an excellent blog campaigning against the privatisation of the NHS had his stories come to the attention of Virgin’s lawyers and was forced to print a humiliating retraction.

The change in the libel law may make it somewhat more difficult for lawyers and plaintiffs to treat us all as potential cash registers but the door has now been opened and we will see a lot more of this crap.

So we can’t back down on attacking Islamism or calling our opponents what they are – but we do at least need to be a lot more aware that what we say online may have unpleasant personal and political consequences.

Andrew Coatessaid,

Just a point Roger, my policy has always been to concentrate on the politics involved. In the case of JIMAS this is not difficult and there is plenty of the equivalent of leftist-Trainspotting, in this case Islamist Trainspotting to take up enough time to make you heartily bored with the whole subject.

I recommend this link (which is the one I used for a political analysis of Jimas):

“These shifting currents had direct consequences on the UK Salafi
scene as JIMAS and individuals associated with them made direct
links with Salafi figures in Saudi Arabia. The split similarly started appearing in Britain with the pro-Saudi government position member,
Abdul Wahid, also known as Abu Khadeejah, leading the polarization
of positions within the group. He challenged Abu Muntasir and those
who were sympathetic to the anti-Saudi government stance, causing a
process of fragmentation over a period of one year. Despite attempts
by senior figures within the UK Salafi community, the rift became irreconcilable with the Abu Khadeejah faction eventually breaking away
and taking a significant number of people with them to form OASIS
(Organization of Ahl al Sunnah Islamic Societies), the precursor to Salafi…..”

On trolls on Dave’s Part, I almost entirely gave up posting comments on the site long ago because of this. It’s simply a waste of time.

dagmsaid,

Andrew: is Salafism reasonably influential amongst Muslims in the UK? I ask as it is one of the things ‘mainstream’ german politicians tend to mention a lot.

They don’t complain about ‘Islam’ or ‘Muslims’, but about Salafists – unsurprisingly as German Salafists have been linked with terrorist incidents (bombs left at railway stations, if I remember rightly) in recent years.

Dave Osler was dragged through the courts and while he won put to great stress and expense because of a single joke by a commenter impugning the sanity of a Tory council candidate.

It wasn’t about that at all, was it? That was *one* of the (many) things mentioned in this questionable legal action, but it was more about someone (I don’t remember her ever being a candidate, either) objecting to Osler reporting – and quoting verbatim, if I remember rightly – what this person had written about her own political history and experiences on her own website – and giving it a much wider readership than she could have hoped for.

But I think that particular subject is best left well alone, we don’t want this website to be hassled either.